Movie Review: Befikre

Warning: this review contains brutal honesty and might contain some spoilers (not that this movie can be spoilt any further).

Promotional Campaigns of the Movie

Befikre’s trailers and pre-release promotion and hype had already set the bar very low for us to expect anything from it. Word on the street was that Befikre is Aditya Chopra’s modern day take on Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayeingay. Unfortunately, it didn’t even cut close! We came across this video series done by Vaani Kapoor on Youtube, prior to the release of the movie. Her attempt of being a ‘French’ girl was deplorable (in her defense, it was the requirement of the character, hence blame goes to the production team also for choosing someone who could not live up to the French accent or style, AT ALL). She speaks wrong French in places and if it’s not grammatically wrong, its pronounced wrong, which takes the entire charm away! Apart from this, the attempt of setting some type of world record with all the ‘kissing scenes’ (the stills of which were plastered all over social and print media via the movie’s posters) was really not fascinating!

The Movie

Ranveer Singh did NOT disappoint! He is his usual looney self. He managed to keep the audience entertained with his expressions and full of life performance, even though his dialogues are not the finest either. Another bonus is his dancing, which is always a delight to watch and makes you want to immediately shake a leg! Ranveer Singh plays the role of Dharam, an Indian expat in Paris, looking to make big in the city of love. His character is nothing out of the ordinary as he plays the role of a guy whose life is being subtly dictated by the leading lady. Since he gets to push himself to the limit of being ‘carefree’ and enjoy life to the fullest, he has no problems with Shyra’s terms. Needless to say, Dharam’s character is very similar to that of Raj’s: Dharam has a strong Indian sanskari side reflected by his respect for Shyra’s parents similar to the one Raj portrayed in DDLJ.

Coming to Vaani Kapoor, her botox-gone-wrong is a sore sight. Her acting skills are questionable. Her dialogues and dressing are both unbearable (blame again goes to the production team). There is no feel in her dialogue delivery. Simran was a character we could relate to in one way or the other. One can still feel the intensity of Kajol’s emotions if you watch DDLJ today, 23 years down the line. The chemistry between Shahrukh and Kajol still hits the right spot. This is NOT the case with Befikre at all. Shyra and Dharam should just have stayed friends and saved us all from their lust-mistaken-for-love!

Then comes the story: Its utter nonsense. It’s barely humorous and neither is it heart wrenching. They’ve simply failed to create any sort of magic. There is no flow in the story-telling. The foreign location thing doesn’t seem to work out in their favour either. We saw the censored version, so we can only imagine what the deleted scenes had in store for us! The only thing that’s remotely good are some of the songs.

Oh and the dance battle between Ranveer and Vaani towards the end of the movie.. umm.. No offence Vaani, but you may be good at it, but you don’t LOOK good doing it!

Our Verdict

DO NOT watch it. Unless you have so much peace and comfort in your life that you purposely want to torture yourself for 2 hours, stay far away from this one. For those who have seen it and agree or disagree, please leave a comment!